Hi! I am Schrodinger’s cat. Oh, you remember, the one that is in the box to demonstrate quantum probabilities, and I am alive and dead rather than one or the other, although each probability is a little fuzzy, but I’m a cat and I’m a little fuzzy anyway…yeah, I knew you’d remember!
So, let’s go about this God thing as the logicians do. I want you to conceive of the CAT ALMIGHTY. The Cat such that nothing more noble or good or powerful or perfect can exist, OK? Yes, you have such a Cat in mind, do you?
Oh no you don’t! You are still conceiving of such a divine Cat as a hypothetical Cat, and I am sitting here and conceiving, in betweenst licking my fur, of such a divine Cat as a REAL, GENUINELY EXISTENT Cat, which is a shade more noble and a bit better and definitely more powerful and perfect where your hypothetical “Cat” is less than so, so you are going to have to do a bit better than that…
Ah, NOW you have it! So you BELIEVE! Come, and bring with you some cheddar cheese and lasagna and tuna fish, and make your offering in this bowl over here! <purr purr>
originally posted Sat, Sep 6, 1997 on the AOL board
STEP ONE: LAWS OF LOGIC
Which logical system are you referring to? Aristotilean? There are many forms of logic.
STEP TWO: LAWS OF MATHEMATICS
So you’ll address Godel’s Impossibility Theorem I presume.
STEP THREE: LAWS OF SCIENCE
But the laws are subject to further refinement based on experimentation.
STEP FOUR: ABSOLUTE MORAL LAWS
History would disagree with you. Some cultures condone the killing of female babies. Why are you so presumptuous that you are right and they are wrong. Or put another way. Many criminals justify their moral violations, perhaps best put by John Huston in Chinatown “Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything.” So why are you right and they’re wrong?
STEP FIVE: THE NATURE OF LAWS (A)
No real argument with this.
STEP SIX: THE NATURE OF LAWS (B)
Although your chain breaks on Step 4 unless you can demonstrate there is a Absolute Moral Code independent of people’s sense of right and wrong, here it completely disintegrates. There are some really good arguments out there that Logic, Mathematics*, Science and Morality are all social constructs and that there is nothing absolute about them.
“Unless I’m mistaken, this sentence proves that God exists.”
“Well, yeah; unless you’re mistaken, it proves that God exists.”
“So you agree – which means I’m not mistaken – which means that God exists.”
I think it becomes clearer if you think of Yahweh as a sort of Bond villain. Sure, he has many different ways of achieving his objectives – with regard to the fish, for example, creationists certainly regard him as being a genetic engineer par excellence. But the Bond villain role model is instructive if one thinks of Yahweh as essentially a showman: his object is not simply to kill those who have offended him – his object is to do so in a truly spectacular fashion, involving major CGI and thunderous multichannel sound that makes your teeth rattle. There is no room for subtlety here – Yahweh is pure entertainment and action-packed moralizing.
Let me start by saying that I believe in God, and furthermore, I believe that God is the only thing that saves me from an eternal oblivion after I die.
Having gotten that out of the way, I don’t accept #4 and the whole thing about absolute moral laws.
First, if the definition of “absolute” applies equally to mathematics, science and morality, it follows that all things must be subject to the same moral laws. But nature is full of exceptions. We do not judge an animal that eats its young, or engages in indiscriminate sex. We do not make a moral judgement between species which mate for life and those which don’t. Yet each of those animals is subject to the same physical laws – they are all (so far as we know) carbon-based, they all go through stages of development, and they all die. Why, then, do some absolute laws apply to animals, but not others?
Secondly, if God could be “proven” to exist, then according to your absolute laws, the Christian God can be proven to exist through testing. You, however, have chosen to cite the Bible as your ultimate source. Whether we believe the Bible is literally true, or a series of moral lessons inspried by God, it is only a writing. If there is a God, then God exists independently of the Bible, independently of my belief, and independently of the universe and the laws that govern it.
Belief is not proof, and to insist on equivalence diminishes both.
While many have claimed that God created man, my question is why would he/she? It’s been explained to me that God is a perfect being, to be reunited in heaven is to be free of all want. I would assume a feature of perfection is not wanting anything, i.e. God provides. But given this self-fulfilled nature, what would be the impetus for God wanting to create anything? God can’t be bored or lonely or be compelled to pursue a course of action to achieve a higher state of understanding. To create is a means to fill a deficit, to have a deficit implies imperfection.
Absolutely true if we define “God” as a perfect being free of want.
I think everybody has their own definition of God, whether they admit it or not … each of us follows a moral code … and these moral codes differ just as our faces differ …
If that gives you comfort, then it serves a purpose. No one should judge that. I have as much of a problem with atheist crusaders telling you why you’re wrong as with religious crusaders inflicting their religion on everyone else and telling them what they must believe. I think the problem many of us here have is that some are inclined to muddle poorly understood scientific principles with religious beliefs, and reach the conclusion that religious dogma can be factually “proven”.
I also love how he proclaims that without Christianity, logic and reason are impossible. So I guess those pagan Greek and Roman philosophers and mathematicians were the Donald Trumps of their day. Euclid? Aristotle? Morons.
